In the weeks to come will be debate over the merits of the St. Paul school board’s decision to ask voters this fall to raise property taxes by $18.6 million.

The board voted 7-0 this week to put the question to a vote on Nov. 6. The tax voters will weigh in on would raise about $46.2 million a year and replace a levy they approved in 2012 that raised $27.6 million.

St. Paul has long been supportive of its public schools, and of levy requests.

The school board members are all good people with good intentions. They don’t serve on the board for money or glory or for the joys of opprobrium. Their constituencies are varied and competing and not always reasonable. Stakes are high. System inertia is heavy, but other conditions dynamic. State and federal mandates and regulations are multitudinous and tangled, and those of us on the outside don’t know the half of it — but we’re all experts, of course, since we once attended school.

It’s with respect for all that that we nonetheless offer suggestions, do’s and don’t’s, to those aiming to make the case for the higher tax in the weeks to come.

DON’T:

— Suggest that we haven’t been investing in our kids. We have. Hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars, via federal taxes, state taxes, county taxes, municipal taxes, donations of money and time and personal effort and more. Argue that we should invest more, if you think that’s so, but not that we haven’t been investing all along.

— Talk down at your neighbors. It’s not uncommon that campaigns for more tax money, particularly in a one-party town, turn into exercises in shaming and false choices — as in, either you favor this higher tax or you’re a person of surpassing moral deficiency who must hate kids and teachers.

— Simply say, “But it’s for the kids!” We all hope, and many believe, that the education of children and the health of our republic are served by the combination of things our tax money funds, but it’s not just for the kids.

DO:

— Listen for what your doubters mean as well as to what they say. Resistance is not necessarily opposition, as the adage goes. A little active listening can go a long way.

— Explain what the money is for. The detractors of our public education systems have doubts because money seems to pour in and disappear while the problems it’s meant to solve persist and persist.

— Explain your organizing principles and your key indicators and how you intend to tell if what you’re doing is working. “What gets measured is what gets done,” is the premise.

— Stand up for a friendly business climate in St. Paul. One way or another, tax money derives from commerce, and economic growth is the way to blunt the ill effects of tax increases.

— Make the pitch with joy, and be loud and proud about what’s good and working — plenty is. All the challenge are real, and most of the critics have a point, but there’s no substitute anywhere for persistence and good cheer — in spite of, or maybe because of, those challenges.

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